Thinking of You
by TheBookishType
Summary: This story starts just before the cliff-diving episode in New Moon, but plays out rather differently. Bella is in for quite a surprise. How would things have been different if Rosalie never told Edward about Alice's vision?


I sat on the cool sand, looking out over the steely waves and feeling lonely. Jake was out on patrol yet again, as he so often had been these past few weeks. I knew he was only fulfilling his duty to his pack and his self-determined obligation to protect me, and I didn't want to be ungrateful – but it was still hard to be left alone, with nothing but the waves and my own restless thoughts for company.

I was relieved and a little surprised to find that the time alone hadn't rent me in two, depositing me on the beach to clutch my severed chest and fight off the waves of pain that had become so familiar to me after…after _he_ left. But it had been weeks since I'd been crippled that way. Jake seemed to have that effect on me, and it looked like his healing balm was beginning to stretch out to fill the times when we weren't together. I hadn't even found myself seeking _his _voice for a little while. Granted, it wasn't an extraordinary enough period of avoiding a psychotic episode to be congratulating myself, but it was still longer than I'd ever thought possible once I'd discovered the dubious gift of that beautiful voice.

The loneliness was really starting to wear on me, however, and it didn't look like Jake would be showing up soon enough to fulfill our task of the day – cliff-diving – before the gathering clouds brewed themselves into a storm.

_Well, what the hell. _I thought recklessly.

I sprang to my feet, tottering slightly, but righted myself before I ended up with a face full of sand. I ran up the path toward my old rusted truck, slinging my shoes and light sweatshirt in the door before darting up the path that led to the cliffs.

Once I reached the precarious ledge, I peeked over carefully at the waves below. _Gulp_. This was higher than I'd thought. But I'd come too far to turn back now. I crept forward with my toes, closer and closer to the precipice, waiting.

But when the voice finally came, it wasn't the one I'd been expecting.

_Bella? _exclaimed a husky voice in an angry and shocked tone.

I was so surprised by this unexpected turn of events that I jumped at the sound. Unfortunately, that, combined with my infamously bad balance, was all it took to send me toppling over the edge towards the roaring sea below. It was the most exhilarating and terrifying 10 seconds of my life.

All my feelings quickly turned to fear, however, when I hit the ice-cold water. I hadn't been expecting that. My muscles instantly locked into place, the sharp fangs of the frigid water stabbing into every pore of my body. While thus incapacitated, the waves, which I now realized, too late, were rendered angry by the storm, crashed upon me from what felt like every direction. I was twisted and turned, flipped and flogged, until I wouldn't have known there was anything left of my body but for the piercing pain of my screaming muscles.

I was out of breath and I knew I didn't have much longer to break the surface before my lungs gave out. The only problem was, I didn't have a clue which way the surface was. My sense of direction wasn't much better than my balance and I almost gave it up as a lost cause. But then I thought of the people I'd be leaving behind to mourn my sudden demise.

_Charlie. Renee. Jacob. _

I knew I had to try.

With strength I didn't have, I swam toward what I hoped was the sky. I pulled with my frozen arms, thrashed with my leaden legs. I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. And I officially had to have air.

I couldn't fight it – my body's reflexes overpowered me and my lungs inhaled in a gasp. Icy, salty seawater poured into my mouth, quickly freezing the only part of my body that had still been functioning – as my brain rushed toward unconsciousness and certain death, I saw the body that matched the voice I had heard in my head just minutes before. A beautiful mirage of a copper-skinned boy with dark hair and warm brown eyes, eyes that just then were set in a mingled look of horror and blind determination, floated above me. As the image dissolved into the haze of my foggy brain, my thoughts whispered _My Jacob_.

Then everything went dark.


End file.
